By Chinelo Obogo
National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdulahi Adamu, has revealed that he initially announced that Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, was the consensus candidate because it was assumed that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would pick its presidential candidate from the South East where it is the most entrenched or the South South.
Speaking to Trust TV, the former Nasarawa governor, said the PDP is predominantly more entrenched in the South East and to some extent, the South South and that members of the opposition had been upbeat about zoning the ticket to the South.
He, however, said after the PDP’s convention, the victory of former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, as the presidential candidate, sent shock waves in the ruling party and for that reason, they had to re-strategise.
“The PDP had been upbeat on the issue, saying the presidency must go to the South and we do know, as a matter of fact, that the PDP is predominantly more entrenched in the South East and to some extent, the South South.
“When they had their convention, to everyone’s surprise, they chose to have a northerner as their presidential candidate and that sent some shock waves in the party because we said these guys have been upbeat about having a southerner as candidate. What do we tell our voters? The preponderance of APC votes are in the north, so we had to have a rethink immediately and tried to respond to that. It is true that after consultation, we had reason to believe that that was the best at the time and that was motivated partially by the decision of the PDP to field Atiku.
“It is not true that I spoke to the National Assembly about Ahmed Lawan. It was the members of the National Working Committee that I consulted with but the next day, some governors came up and said they wanted it to go to the south and they committed it to writing. In the process, they caused some pandemonium. I know that if everyone of us wanted to stand his or her ground, it would have been catastrophic within the party and I didn’t want that to happen. We then went to the convention even though there was pressure on me to withdraw my statement but I refused and said whoever wants to contest should go and contest and let it be open. So, we went to the convention and Tinubu won,” he said.
Adamu however said he was optimistic that the APC would win the presidential election because the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, who he said gave the LP a lifeline after he joined, would most likely take the PDP votes in the South East and the South South.
“He will take votes off the PDP in the South East and the South South. You cannot deny that as a reality in politics. But I don’t believe that it would be substantial enough to make our party lose considering the fact that our party has a membership of 42 million people,” he said.